


you’d break your heart to make it bigger

by micahgranados



Category: Descendants (Disney Movies)
Genre: Angst, Caring Uma (Disney), Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Isle of the Lost (Disney) is a Terrible Place, Mild Gore, Pre-Canon, Sea Three (Disney: Descendants), Underage Drinking, i just really love uma, it’s kind of a character study?, sea three are found family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-30
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-16 20:00:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29087970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/micahgranados/pseuds/micahgranados
Summary: uma grows up with a heart far too large to fit in her chest so she compresses it, squeezes it to a bloody, pulsating pulp that dribbles between her fingers. there is empty space between her ribs, but uma is used to empty space. she learns why they call it a rib cage. she learns to miss the phantom pulse that used to be the only thing tying her down.or: uma cares too much.
Relationships: Gil & Harry Hook & Uma
Kudos: 14





	you’d break your heart to make it bigger

they say it’s bad luck for a woman to be on a ship. 

uma grows up like any other kid on the isle: rib-sharp and furious. she walks along the harbour’s edge, pressing her feet deep into the grimy sand, begging the grains to remember her imprints. they always wash away. she wades waist-deep into the greasy ocean. she wills the sharks that stalk the isle border to take a bite out of her, but they never do. instead, her legs tangle with the slimy seaweed and salt crusts itself to her legs. she grows up like any other kid: ravenous. aching. 

her mother reminisces her sea-witch days, when the whole world was at her fingertips. sometimes uma thinks she sounds insane and sometimes uma thinks she sounds right. the isle is full of scorch marks from kids blazing with fury. the dragon girl would raze the town if she could. uma brims with something more patient than anger. the sea is patient. it is persistent and it erodes over time. a wine-dark, somber resentment fills uma’s bones; trickles into her bloodstream. auradon left a thunderstorm in the mud. auradon tried to bottle up a flood. 

uma grows up with a heart far too large to fit in her chest so she compresses it, squeezes it to a bloody, pulsating pulp that dribbles between her fingers. there is empty space between her ribs, but uma is used to empty space. she learns why they call it a rib cage. she learns to miss the phantom pulse that used to be the only thing tying her down. 

when she’s eight, a boy who’s all limbs with a wide grin and glint to his eye bumps into her on the docks and uma decides she wants in. the boy talks in a way that makes her giggle, fast and almost melodic, like the blood rushing in your ears before you die or a forgotten lullaby that can’t seep through the isle’s border. he pulls her hair so she leaves an ugly bruise on his cheek. they swing at each other until uma wins, her fingers sticky, covered in someone else’s blood for the first time in her life. he says that his name is harry. six years later, she’ll make him her first mate. 

when she’s twelve, a stocky boy with golden curls reaches for the same scrap of mouldy bread at the same time she does. the shine to his hair is untarnished and like the sunlight she dreams of bathing in. his face is gaunt and uma isn’t kind but she lets him take it. she goes hungry for the third day in a row, but that’s fine: she is used to empty spaces. but the next day, the boy shuffles into her mother’s shop and slips her a brown battered apple. uma shows harry; describes the boy to him. harry cackles ferociously into the murky night.  _ that’s gaston’s boy_, he says,  _ he’s thick,_ and uma will remember the bruises slipped under his sleeves that matched her own. she waits a week and pounces on him as he’s leaving the market. so what if his hair is brighter than anything else on the isle? he’s strong, and uma wants to call him  _mine._ in an alleyway, gripping the knife she stole from her mother’s shop, she vows to dismember gaston, and when gil’s lips curl into a smile, she grins back; a beast his father was so afraid of. 

they’re her boys, and they survive together. harry steals his father’s rum for them to share and splutter as it burns their throats. and, for the first time, she might begin to learn what love is. and her mother will lament about having the world at her fingertips and the next time she grips her boys’ hands her breath will catch. 

her first sword comes from the dying body of a wheezing old man. he’s not going to miss it. she sleeps with it, and, not for the first time, dreams of slitting the king’s throat. the sword is heavy but she learns how to use it like she learned how to use her fists, and harry and gil help her practice until she is deadlier than a knife’s edge. they build a reputation for themselves. sea-witch, mad pirate, brick-wall brute. uma fights the dragon girl and harry fights her thief. there is no room for the kindness she’s trying desperately to shed herself of on the isle. but when a kid stumbles their way into the shop, clothes limply hanging off them like a ghost ridding itself of its host, uma ushers them behind the counter and slips them the freshest fish she can. bandages their wounds. if any customers notice, they don’t say anything. they wouldn’t dare. 

uma learns to scream the same way the wind howls in her ears. when her mother roars her name, she roars back. even the sea tosses. even the sea levels cities. patience is a poison that takes years to erode. but uma has all those years to wait. she has empty space to fill. she finds a crew and they commandeer a ship and name her captain. she looks out to the sea she’ll never explore and swallows back tears. she grows up like any other kid on the isle: yearning for a future she’s not allowed. 

and when she’s sixteen with bared teeth and spitting blood, she’ll be lying on the sand with her boys, trying to imagine what stars look like, and gil will laugh at something harry said and uma will have to shatter a scream before it leaves her lips because she knows that, if she had the chance, she would not leave the isle. there are too many children who know how dark blood can be and her heart loves to whisper to her the same way sea foam does. untouchable, unspeakable, unthinkable. she can’t afford to be soft. but the griping ache inside of her won’t give up, and she looks out to the horizon, mockingly dark, and, not for the first time, curses the king’s name. she can’t bring herself to look at her boys’ faces, and, not for the first time, curses her persistent coward of a heart. 

what does she owe the isle? it moulded her to a girl who doesn’t flinch when first blood is broken. she’s all cracked ribs and sand nestled between toes, watching the tide and wishing she could be swept along with it. auradon moulded the kids who fester, who seethe, who are digging their own graves because no one else will.

and when the cage rusts and uma is faced with a rotting pulp of a heart, she understands why the tide always comes back even though it can leave. 

they say it’s bad luck for a woman to be on a ship. and when the world ripples under the weight of her name, they finally learn why. 

**Author's Note:**

> hi thank you so much for reading!! i would really appreciate it if you left kudos & comments bc i worked really hard on this!!
> 
> i’m @juliesscooby on twitter :)


End file.
